Page 6 of Ravaged Devotion

The sound of his new stepbrother’s malicious laughter seemingly following him all the way back to Tulniri.

One Year Ago

“Come on, man, calm down.” Bowie slapped a hand against Rue’s shoulder, jostling him.

“Yeah, dude’s right,” their friend Adams added. “It’s been two years already, and your parents are even married now. No one who matters blames you, Rue.”

“It’s all in your head.” Lenore bumped against him and winked when he looked over at her.

They were trying to be reassuring.

It wasn’t working.

Especially not when a mere glance around proved they were wrong.

The whispers had started almost as soon as he’d stepped from the hovercar. He hadn’t been seen on planet since the wedding, and while it’d done the trick and quieted most of the rumors, people loved their gossip too much to allow the story to die and be buried that easily.

Some of them were at least attempting to be discrete, but not everyone was as considerate. Those who were originally meant to be his peers when he’d lived here pointed his way and spoke of the Harts and that day where it’d all gone wrong.

The day Rue’s entire life had imploded.

The merger between their families helped quell the more obvious accusations. The ones that claimed Rue was the cause for Ryder and Uriel’s current stasis. His name had swept through the papers for weeks, reporters branding him a criminal. Another “protected rich brat”. When Rhys had married his mother, the press had been forced to go quiet. Everyone knew Rhys Hart wasn’t the type to suffer insult, and there was no way he’d welcome someone who had harmed his family into said family.

Time and time again, members of the staff for both Hart Holding and Vadim Enterprise had given interviews explaining that Rue had not been involved at all. That his choosing to enroll in a university off planet was simply coincidence.

Officially, this had been accepted as the truth.

Unofficially…

“I should just go home.” Rue tried to step out of the line they’d been waiting in for over an hour—not his first attempt to flee, either—but was hauled back by a tutting Bowie.

“Don’t be such a coward,” he said. “Enough is enough. How long are you planning on punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault? It’s the Harts fault for not doing more to clear your name when they know you had nothing to do with it.”

Adams and Lenore exchanged glances, but neither of them told Bowie to stop.

“Cor Night is just what you need,” Bowie continued as they moved closer to the entrance of the great hall at Sacrum Cor University. “You’ve got to see what you’ve been missing out on by choosing a school on another planet!”

Rue had gotten into Sacrum Cor and had initially planned on attending with his friends…and with the Harts…but…After the event, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Had basically run to Tulniri, another planet where he didn’t have to face the people he’d wronged or—he’d wrongly believed—himself.

The line moved up and then they were at the entrance, a girl smiling brightly at him before leaning over to clip a flashing red heart pin to his shirt.

His anxiety spiked as he stepped beneath the threshold, torn between wanting to see Ryker and praying he skated through the night unnoticed by the Black Hart.

Before the event that had torn them apart, Rue had been excited to attend Sacrum Cor specifically for nights like these. For Cor Night, and what that meant for the elite group who ran the school, the Black Harts.

Praeda.

Cor Night on its own was a celebration put on by the university, but during it, the Black Harts took part in another event known as Praeda, wherein they were allowed to select any student they desired and order them to do whatever they wished. Usually, that ended up being something sexual.

Teenage Rue used to fantasize about Ryker hunting him across the hypovolley field.

Catching and taking him wildly in the snow.

Didn’t matter that, technically, as a Vadim, Rue would have also been a Black Hart, a title given once young members of the founding families joined the university their freshman year. His hormonal driven daydreams had always been about being hunted, not being the hunter. About the anticipation and rush of knowing he would be caught, specifically by Ryker.

He didn’t think he’d ever play out those fantasies with anyone else.

Which meant now he would never get to experience it in real life.